


Play Nice

by Miss_M



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M, Manipulation, Narcissism, Post-Canon, Seduction, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-18 17:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5936914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Surely you do not expect the mighty and terrible Goblin King to perform <em>those</em> tasks for you. Where’s the fun in that for me?”</p><p>Some years after her time in the labyrinth, Sarah gives in to temptation and summons Jareth with a request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play Nice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shewhoguards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewhoguards/gifts).



> This is a treat. I own nothing.

“You wish me to do _what_?”

The Goblin King looked magnificent and ludicrous standing in Sarah’s cramped dorm room, his midnight-blue cape with a sheen like wet Victorian cobblestones under gaslight brushing the walls and covering half of Sarah’s narrow bed. He placed the slightest emphasis on the last word, so Sarah knew he was more amused than irritated with her for summoning him after all this time.

She had been tempted to summon him many times during high school, but she had always refrained. Sarah had tried to be smarter about putting herself in temptation’s way, for in life fairytale logic did not hold, so she could not always riddle or talk her way out of tight spots. Now Sarah was finally grown up, in college, and smart enough to major in microbiology. She felt ready and eager for some temptation. The memory of a peach, sweet and soft on her tongue, reminded Sarah how well Jareth knew to tempt her.

She repeated her request slowly, to make sure she got the formula right. “I wish you would throw my roommate Sherryl into the Bog of Eternal Stench. Right now.”

Jareth lifted one perfect eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that make her even more annoying to live with?”

 _Oh good_ , Sarah thought. The snowy owl she had spotted outside her window several times had been spying on her for the Goblin King after all. She did not need to waste time explaining why she couldn’t stand Sherryl, with her endless pots and tubes of face paint, her bad taste in music, and her inexhaustible parade of sneering expressions pointed in Sarah’s direction. If Sarah had to list all this for Jareth, he might call her childish, and then Sarah would have a hard time keeping her temper and appearing as mature as she wished. Anyway, she had worked it all out, like a math problem only she could solve. 

“I wouldn’t have to live with her,” Sarah pointed out. “I will argue that incurably bad body odor in a roommate is reasonable grounds for me to be assigned a single room, while Sherryl gets reassigned.” To some incoming freshman or luckless transfer student, but that was no concern of Sarah’s. 

Jareth watched her with both eyebrows arched high. Sarah resisted the temptation to preen at having impressed him.

The Goblin King had perfected the art of mocking laughter during the centuries spent among his subjects. He gave Sarah a brief demonstration as he seated himself on her bed without so much as a by-your-leave, crossed his long legs in the tight breeches he favored, and propped an elbow on his knee and his chin on a gloved hand. 

Sarah forbade herself sternly from squirming under his sardonic regard, but she could not prevent her cheeks from heating up. She hated her fair complexion sometimes. 

“Tell me, Sarah,” Jareth said, “do you remember Doctor Goldman? Do you remember what he told you when your parents took you to see him soon after you saved your brother from my fell clutches?”

Sarah had been too smart to tell the child psychologist her _stepmother_ had found in the local paper anything about her quest through the labyrinth and her rescue of Toby. Explaining her feelings about her little brother had been very hard without telling the truth, and in the end Goldman had told Sarah’s parents that Sarah was a fantasist and a borderline narcissist. 

“Doctor Goldman was my stepmother’s choice,” Sarah cried out. “He didn’t believe a word I said to him, he twisted everything around!”

“How could he have taken your word for anything, when you lied by omission about your adventures in my realm?”

Sarah scowled. “If I’d told the truth, he would have put me on medication or had me locked up.”

Jareth smiled. Sarah was no longer enjoying making him smile. 

“Quite the delicious conundrum, isn’t it?” the Goblin King said. “Here is another. If you manage to work it out, I will grant you your wish and toss Sherryl headfirst into the Bog of Eternal Stench.” 

“Well?” Sarah asked warily. 

“Quite simple, really. All you have to do before I condemn Sherryl to a lifetime of olfactory and social unpleasantness is be nice to her for one month. _Genuinely_ nice, Sarah, not that pretend-nice where you make faces behind a person’s back and don’t,” he smiled, his incisors looking sharp, “mean a word you say to their face.” 

Sarah stared at him where he lounged on her bed like it was a very rumpled throne. “If I could be genuinely nice to Sherryl, I wouldn’t want her to not be my roommate!”

Jareth shrugged. Sarah had never known a shrug could look so arrogant.

“You could always resort to time-honored methods such as hiding her belongings, sprinkling itching powder in her bed sheets or putting a simple lose-your-way spell on her so she never gets anywhere on time, until she demands to be reassigned away from you. Surely you do not expect the mighty and terrible Goblin King to perform _those_ tasks for you. Where’s the fun in that for me?”

Sarah took a deep breath and sat on the bed next to Jareth. Right next to him. She had imagined this moment many times, had worked out many scenarios in her head where she asked him for a boon and he asked her to give herself to him in return. The scene was not playing out quite right, but Sarah could still salvage it. Jareth had always had eyes for her, even when she had been too young and naïve to fully understand the nature of his interest. 

“There must be something else I can offer you in exchange,” Sarah said, sounding even breathier than she had intended. Her heart was beating in her throat. 

Jareth’s mismatched eyes flashed as he examined her. Finally he leaned close to her. Sarah gasped and cursed herself silently for a stupid little girl.

“Sarah.” No one could say her name like he could. “Sometimes you forget to draw the curtains before you lie in this bed and pleasure yourself when Sherryl is away.” Sarah did not dare blink or swallow. She wanted to disappear with shame, and she wanted more than anything to hear what Jareth said next. “There are no magical wards on the window, and I know your innermost thoughts. I always have. Do you think, if I wanted only what you’re offering me, I could not have come in through that window and taken you a thousand and one times by now?” 

He lingered a moment longer, his breath warm on Sarah’s lips, before he stood up in one fluid motion, like an ocean wave changing direction as it crested.

Sarah’s heart was still pounding, her palms were sweating, her insides were a tangled knot. She shot to her feet, feeling like a sparkler about to go off. How could he not kiss her when she was ready for him at last? How _could_ he?

“That’s not…” she began, sounding nothing like a girl ready to be ravaged with kisses. 

Jareth’s eyebrow admonished rather than teased. “If the word ‘fair’ passes your lips, Sarah, I shall pull out your little brother’s tongue and use it as a bookmark.” 

Sarah shut her mouth. She did not dare blink, fearing and wondering what he might do in that split second of lost time while her eyes were shut. 

“I wouldn’t care if you did pull out Toby’s tongue.” She flung the words at Jareth. “He talks too much anyway.”

“If you really mean that, you know the words to make it happen.” Jareth chucked her under the chin, the smooth kidskin of his glove rasping over her skin. “Learn to be nice, Sarah. You must learn to be nice before you can learn to be naughty.” Then, with a smile as awful as a disappointing first kiss, the Goblin King stepped into the mirror hanging above Sherryl’s headboard and vanished. 

Sarah threw herself back on her bed with a sigh, which came out as a muted scream. She hated the Goblin King so much sometimes, and yet no one else could compare. Her hand landed on the spot where he had been sitting, still warm from contact with his body. Sarah smoothed the sheets, trying to prevent the warmth from dissipating. 

Once her hand became warmer than the sheets, Sarah got up and closed the curtains, undressed, and got into her bed. She stuck out her tongue at the mirror, which reflected only the room and her face. Then she pulled the covers over her head, certain Jareth could see her anyway, thrilling at how warm and grown-up she could make herself feel, whether he was with her or not. She would show Jareth how convincing she could be when she put her mind to something, to act nice or anything else she pleased.


End file.
